With so many dating platforms available to us today, meeting your future spouse has never been easier. Such services promise that your soulmate is just one click away. However, the convenience of dating apps comes with many opportunities for lies and scams. Compared to meeting someone in person, such as through friends or at work, when you meet a romantic partner online, it can be more difficult to find information about their background.

Do a Background Check

All background checks, even the least formal, start with identity verification. This will help to determine whether this person is who they say they are. In addition, verifying their marital status is part of this process. This will help you find out whether they are currently married, or whether they have been married before. It’s a good idea to run a background check because it can confirm there are no potential legal barriers to marrying them.

Keep Your Premarital Assets Separate

If your future spouse has debt, their creditors will get access to your funds if you combine your assets if they are proven unable to pay off their debt. Are you willing to take this risk? However, if you keep your premarital assets separate, their creditors won’t have any tools to press you for their debt. This means keeping separate budgets and finances as well. In fact, financial conflict is the biggest cause of marital strife. Therefore, it’s important to have open and honest conversations about finances before tying the knot to ensure both partners are on the same page. Establishing clear boundaries regarding premarital assets and creating a financial plan can help avoid unnecessary tension. Additionally, engaging in stress relief activities before weddings, such as yoga, meditation, or spending quality time together, can help ease financial worries and strengthen your bond as you prepare for this new chapter.

Keeping your assets separate can be beneficial in the long term. You don’t need to see it as preparing for divorce. Moreover, maintaining and handling assets properly has no downside. The key phrase here is separate but organized. Before you get married, you can plan to open new joint accounts rather than combining your existing assets. You can use them for your financial needs after you tie the knot. This way, the funds in your individual accounts will not be at risk.

Considering Creating a Trust

You might want to manage and grow funds over the period of your marriage. A revocable trust is a legal entity with an extra degree of protection. Typically, these trusts use a third party to manage the funds, such as a trustee. By using a trustee, any growth of the funds in the trust is considered separate, not joint, because you’re not personally responsible for creating it. What’s more, a revocable trust makes keeping track of funds much easier.

Furthermore, it is important to avoid confusing your individual and separate accounts. You might end up depositing your post-marital assets into an individual account or vice versa. If this happens, the funds will get mixed up and your claims to protected premarital assets will become null and void.

These plans are contingent upon the financial responsibility of both partners. Running a background check before getting married will reveal whether your future spouse has been open about their finances, including any past woes.  

Get to Know Their Family

Before marrying into their family, you should get to know them. You might even look into your future spouse’s relatives’ backgrounds or at least, examine those of their closest family. Normally, one wouldn’t hesitate to introduce their family to their partner. If this isn’t the case with them, something fishy might be going on. Down the road, your marriage might be affected by family problems. You need to know about any potential conflict before getting married so you can make the best decision on how to approach it. It’s also worth paying attention to how they interact with their family, as this can give you valuable insights into their character and potential dynamics in your future relationship. Open communication is key—discuss any concerns and make sure you’re on the same page about family expectations. After all, while everyone wants to look spectacular for marriage ceremonies, it’s the foundation of trust and understanding that ensures the relationship thrives long after the celebrations are over.

There is nothing wrong with dreaming about your “happily ever after,” but a picture-perfect love story can also serve as the backdrop for a devious scenario. Tasking a reliable service with a premarital background check can eliminate the risk of exposing yourself to fraud or a scam.